The invention relates to the field of disposable products, and, more particularly, to the field of disposable undergarments.
Over the years, consumers have shifted demand from cloth diapers to disposable diapers for infants and toddlers. This demand has increased and developed the disposable diaper industry into a major industry. As this industry developed, consumers preferred and often demanded improvements in disposable products which included better core absorbency, products which are easier to fasten, detach, and reattach side peripheries of the waistbands, various sizes of products for various weights and sizes of infants and toddler, and better control of leakage from around the legs and waistbands when the diaper is positioned on an infant or toddler.
This development of the disposable diaper industry, however, has increased demand for faster and more efficient disposable undergarment production. This demand is further complicated by the development of disposable infant and toddler briefs, which have a different product configuration and have different product performance requirements than disposable diapers. Also, because of the relative success of the disposable diapers and the high volume of disposable diaper products produced in manufacturing, the market for toddler briefs has generally been a much smaller subset of the infant and toddler disposable diaper market. The demand for toddler briefs in general is substantially less than the disposable diapers. Accordingly, these specially configured briefs are not normally produced on the same production line as the disposable diaper production line. Because the market demand for these briefs is less, product manufacturers are less inclined to invest in additional machinery for producing these products. The product manufacturer, however, is also pushed by retailers and consumers to provide a full-line of disposable products for infants and toddlers.
Additionally, as the nursing home care and elderly care industry has grown over the years, the elderly often have needed more and more assistance from nursing home or elderly care personnel, including urination and bowel movement assistance. Urination and bowel movement problems have also arisen among various aged adults such as loss of bladder control through childbirth or other medical reasons. Therefore, because manufacturers of disposable undergarments can be limited in the foot-print or square footage available for production, especially for adult, toddler, and infant specialty undergarments such as briefs, and because labor costs can be quite expensive, demand continues to increase for systems which increase production speed of disposable undergarments in a relatively small amount of space.
In view of the foregoing background, the present invention advantageously provides an apparatus and methods for forming a connection of portions of a moving folded web of disposable undergarments. The present invention also advantageously provides a disposable undergarment forming apparatus having a folder, a registrations conveyor, a side connector, and/or a separator.
The present invention additionally advantageously provides an apparatus and method for registering and conveying a web of disposable undergarments. The present invention further provides a disposable undergarment forming apparatus and method of producing a plurality of disposable undergarments which increases the production speed and reduces the square footage of floor or manufacturing space needed for producing the disposable undergarments to thereby increase the value and productivity of a production line.
The present invention also advantageously provides a disposable undergarment forming apparatus and method for producing disposable undergarments more efficiently. The present invention further advantageously provides a disposable undergarment forming apparatus and method having the flexibility to produce both infant or toddler undergarments and adult undergarments and produce different undergarment configurations efficiently with only minor production line changes.
More particularly, the apparatus preferably includes registration conveying means for registering and conveying a folded web of disposable undergarments moving along a predetermined path of travel and web connecting means positioned adjacent said registration conveying means for connecting portions of the folded web as the folded web is conveyed along the predetermined path of travel.
The present invention also provides an apparatus for registering and conveying portions of a moving folded web of disposable undergarments. The apparatus preferably includes first web contacting means, e.g., provided by a first conveying belt, for abuttingly contacting portions of a folded web of disposable undergarments moving along a predetermined path of travel and second web contacting means, e.g., provided by a second conveying belt, positioned adjacent the first web contacting means for abuttingly contacting the folded web so that the first and second web contacting means in combination cooperate to register and hold the folded web therebetween. The apparatus also preferably includes driving means positioned to contact the first and second web contacting means for driving the first and second web contacting means along the predetermined path of travel to thereby move or transport the folded web along the same predetermined path of travel.
The present invention additionally provides methods of forming a connection of portions of a moving folded web of disposable undergarments. A method preferably includes registeringly conveying a folded web of disposable undergarments along a predetermined path of travel and connecting portions of the folded web as the folded web is conveyed along the predetermined path of travel.
Another method for forming a connection of portions of a web of disposable undergarments preferably includes folding cores of a web of disposable undergarments during travel along a predetermined path, registeringly conveying the folded web of disposable undergarments along a predetermined path of travel, connecting portions of the folded web as the folded web is conveyed along the predetermined path of travel, and separating the folded web of disposable undergarments along the connected portions of the folded web so as to form a plurality of individual disposable undergarments.